The evolution of advertising, from billboards to mobile apps

Billboards, as we know today, were invented in 1889 when the world’s first 21 sheet billboard was displayed at Paris Exposition. Ever since, billboards have been used to advertise everything from circuses, cars, and upcoming movies.

The billboard off the side of a highway has been more or less the same for the last 100 years with some minor innovations. Digital billboards cycle through ads throughout the day and night. Chick-Fil-A is famous for their 3D billboards featuring graffitiing cows.

Some billboards are dragged by truck's, bikes or airplanes to deliver your business’ ad right to consumer’s location. But what if you could reach customers wherever they are without hiring someone to pilot your billboard?

Luckily using Mobile Advertising Billboards (MABs for short) businesses can target customers where they do most of their shopping, their mobile phones.

These advertise to customers differently depending on their location in the world. Waze and Yellow Pages both have businesses advertised on their app as points on their map.

The question is, what prompts a customer to engage with your business on a map? The customer isn’t going to stop what they were doing to click on your ad while driving or looking up other businesses or services.

Each evolution of the billboard has been static and non-interactive. All of them have been for gathering impressions, not directly driving the customer to your business, that changes now.

Introducing interactive mobile advertising billboards (IMABs for short). An exclusive way to advertise and attract customers to your business from SurveyMe.

Both IMABS and MABS advertise your business on our app’s ecosystem, but only one allows your customers to interact with your business. A MAB shows your business on your map but only allows customers to link to your offer and find your website.

An IMAB, on the other hand, gives customers an incentive to interact with you on the map. Customers will receive coupons or an instant reward (no saving up points over here) after completing a short survey as a thank you directly from your business.

In return, you as a business owner receive customer loyalty, marketing, and ever-important customer feedback. This is the digital age, where customers want to interact with their favorite businesses.

If someone complains on Twitter or Facebook publicly about a bad customer experience they had it's expected for the company to respond to them directly. Yelling at a static billboard on the side of the freeway isn’t going to do much good for the customer.

This method attracts customers by standing out amongst the crowd of other businesses and letting them know you care about your customers.